Major rescue and accident Tenerife?

JJ

Member
Does anyone know anything about this? Is it true sounds very bad.

The Spanish police and fire service carried out a dramatic rescue operation Sunday for 29 day-trippers who got lost in the depths of a cave on the Canary Island of Tenerife.

Six of the tourists were still missing Sunday morning, Spanish authorities reported.

Hopes were fading that the remaining tourists would be found alive in the cave near Los Silos in the north of the island.

The rescue teams were able to locate the missing tourists in the cave's tunnels, which are partly under water, but could not immediately get to them.


"The rescuers could see that the six tourists were lying motionless on the ground almost 2 kilometres from the cave's entrance.

The trip to the cave had been organized by a research institute in the Canaries and a group of nature lovers.

The tourists were predominately Spanish, but there were also a few foreign scientists with them whose nationalities were not immediately known.

Fifteen of the group of 29 were able to get themselves out of the tunnel network, while eight others were rescued. They were suffering from breathing difficulties."

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Sounds like bad air a terrible tragedy. I assume a lava tube cave.
 

AndyF

New member
Eek, sounds grim. I'd guess bad air in the lava tubes, but I'm sure we will hear more of this.
 
C

Cave Monkey

Guest
" It was believed that the group had taken a wrong turn during their underground excursion and entered a tunnel which had been dug during the 19th century in an effort to find water but which had contained poisonous gases and little oxygen. "

3 dead and 3 still missing.
 

Les W

Active member
The tunnels are "Galareia" - man made tunnels to get water. There are many thousands of these tunnels on Tenerife and some are very long and quite complex

The BBC article says 24 escaped and 6 died, presumably from oxygen depletion or very high CO2.  :(

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6352333.stm
 
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